


Against the Night

by Inisheer



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: #BuckyNat Mini Bang, #BuckyNat Week, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-08
Updated: 2016-04-08
Packaged: 2018-05-31 22:57:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6490705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inisheer/pseuds/Inisheer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nightmares you can wake up from. Daylight horrors are a different matter.</p><p>When Bucky Barnes' world is ripped apart once again in the wake of the Avengers' conflict, he finds himself working with an oddly familiar stranger to clear an innocent name and track down the true enemy.</p><p>Also, there are pancakes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Against the Night

**Author's Note:**

> I promised I would post something "coherent, finished and mostly recognisable as the story I originally said I would write, on schedule" so… success? (As long as I can argue the case that it's still Thursday in the States.)
> 
> (Minor edits for nuts and bolts issues.)

(Four. Five. Six.)

Bucky’s sister Becca had once crawled into his bed in the middle of the night, cold feet and all, to tell him about a nightmare. No, not once - that had happened plenty of times - but it was one time and one nightmare he was thinking of. In it, Becca told him, she’d been running away from a monster, the slow way you did in dreams, and she’d woken up just as it was about to catch her.

(Seven. Eight. Turn.)

She’d gotten up. She’d dressed herself. She’d gone through for breakfast.

(One. Two. Three.)

Except the apartment’s roof had been open sky with the walls falling away, and the clothes had been her mother’s, the people in the kitchen strangers, and there had still been monsters in the shadows waiting to gobble her up… _And_ , she’d whispered to Bucky while he pulled the blankets around them, it was only when she’d woken up for real that she’d realised the first time had still been part of the dream.

(Four. Five. Six.)

He must have found it interesting enough to remember, which was odd in itself, because at the time Bucky didn’t recall that he’d given much thought to it. _It was only a dream_ , he’d whispered to Becca, and fallen asleep again almost as quickly as she had. Now he was far more frightened by it than he’d been at thirteen or so. He wondered if you could go on like that forever: always thinking you’d escaped the nightmare, only to find yourself in a different layer of it, twisting and changing but ultimately unending. He was starting to think you could. It sounded like his life.

(Seven. Eight. Turn.)

His muscles ached to move, to run, to hit something, and Bucky wondered how much trouble there would be if he punched a hole in the wall. He was pretty certain this place belonged to Stark - most everywhere seemed to nowadays - who could no doubt afford the damages; and that would make it more satisfying, though still less so than punching Stark in the face. 

(One. Two. Three.)

Then again. It would be a _lot_ of trouble. Far more, in his opinion, than the tasteless interior decorating deserved. Bucky was still re-learning how to live in a world where people were greatly concerned about minor property damage, but he thought - probably - that even if he’d been somebody else, it wouldn’t have been worth the bother. Being who he was… Definitely not. He’d half-expected to be thrown in a holding cell as it was. Bucky wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or insulted that he’d instead been shown to this plush waiting room, politely asked to stay put, and ten minutes later offered a cup of tea by a terrified intern.

(Four. Five. Six.)

Nobody had come to speak to him since then. Bucky supposed he could have gone to investigate, but that polite request hadn’t been of the kind that suggested it was optional. It had been hours ago. Outside, there would be a frenzy and hubbub of activity, but the once and - to some, still - future Winter Soldier could not be part of that. At best he was a complication, a bereft victim, another nuisance to be dealt with on a day that could not afford nuisances. Bucky didn’t need to imagine what the worst they thought of him might be. He was beginning to regret turning down the tea.

(Seven. Eight. Turn.)

He wondered how much pain Steve had been in as he died.

(One. Two. Three.)

(Four. Five. Six.)

(Seven. Eight. -)

‘You should get a FitBit.’

( _Turn._ )

The Black Widow - Romanoff - Natasha - stood about a foot inside the door Bucky hadn’t even heard open. In his effort not to startle, all he could think of to say was a gormless, ‘What?’

‘It’s an exercise thing. Clint wears one. Don’t tell him I told you.’ 

Bucky stared at her. The last time he’d seen Romanoff, things had been on fire, she’d been wearing combat gear and quite a lot of blood (some of it, possibly, her own), he’d been in a great deal of pain - and - and Steve had been there, battling alongside the Widow with the ease and grace of long practice. Now, all cleaned up apart from a few still-healing cuts, she’d wandered in and started talking about - _something_ he couldn’t even make sense of - and Steve was dead. So they’d told him. It wasn’t something you’d lie about, and the agents’ shock had been real enough.

‘What?’ he said again.

‘Never mind.’ Her expression was hard to read. Intent. Focused. If she was upset about Steve, if she was worried, if she was angry, then Bucky couldn’t find it anywhere in her face or body language. ‘I hear you threatened to go after Tony.’

Tony. Stark. Bucky clenched his flesh-and-blood fist. ‘If he hadn’t screwed up -‘

‘Then it would’ve been something else. You’re right, Tony’s a screw-up, but he’s not responsible for this. The people who are will be brought to justice.’

That was more of the same bull Bucky had been forced to sit through earlier. This was CIA and FBI business, he’d been told in no uncertain terms. Once upon a time it might have been SHIELD business. It wasn’t Avengers business, for all that it had torn right through the heart of the Avengers; and it wasn’t Bucky’s business, since nobody could decide if Bucky was currently a civilian or a threat to national security but he sure as hell wasn’t working for anybody’s organisation, and apparently freelance wasn’t an option. They were to leave the situation alone. Join in the public outpouring of grief over Captain America, perhaps, and leave catching his killers to the professionals.

‘By who? General Ross?’ he snarled. ‘Or will they let Stark help, as long as he agrees to fall in line?’

‘I understand that you’re upset, Barnes,’ said the Widow, silkily sympathetic.

‘Damn right I’m upset. What are we supposed to do, sit and twiddle our thumbs while Rumlow gets further away and Zemo sits in his cell laughing at us? What am I supposed to do -‘ He stopped, because the end of that question had nothing to do with CIA jurisdiction. _What am I supposed to do without him?_ He’d outlived three sisters and might just have borne the thought of losing a brother too, if Steve had not been the only person in the world Bucky had left.

‘Yes. That’s exactly what our orders are to do.’ Romanoff’s eyes met his. Her tone had shifted slightly, and Bucky frowned, trying to hear behind the party line. This was a woman who’d worn more identities than the average movie star, once outwitted a trickster god and taken down SHIELD from the inside. More than that, she’d been Steve’s friend, and Steve did not make friends with people who blindly followed orders. He still couldn’t tell what she was thinking, but something in her hard gaze suggested that it didn’t match up to her words.

‘So why are you here?’

Her lips twitched. It was about half a smirk. ‘First of all, to talk you down from doing anything… Rash. You know. Steve-like. If you promise to behave, you’re free to go. And secondly, to take you to breakfast.’

‘Breakfast?’

This time it was a whole smirk. ‘I know the best place.’

 

***

 

The morning sun glinted off steel-and-chrome buildings as Natasha Romanoff’s black bullet car wove through the streets below. Mist hung low over the Hudson. It was early enough that even the city’s notorious traffic hadn’t built up to critical mass, and by Newark they were only hitting the first signs of the day’s commute. 

‘This seems like a long way to go for breakfast,’ said Bucky.

Romanoff gave him an amused look. ‘We’re meeting friends.’

They drove in silence for a while. Bucky lowered his window and rested his arm on the sill. The other reached reflexively for his rucksack, which muscle memory told him should be on his lap if it wasn’t on his back, though it was now safely hidden in Steve’s apartment. He forced the metal hand to relax.

‘So. Barnes,’ his companion said, about three miles out of Newark.

‘You don’t need to call me that.’ 

‘Well, “Bucky” is a bit…’

‘Childish?’

‘I was going to say nineteen-forties, but if the shoe fits,’ said Romanoff. She glanced at him and looked back at the road. ‘That’s Steve’s name for you.’

This solemn comment seemed to hang in the air. Half a mile vanished under the tyres before Bucky answered, ‘Call me James.’

‘Natasha.’

‘All right. Natasha. What were you going to say?’

‘How much do you know about what happened last night?’

He knew that Tony Stark had taken Steve into custody the night before. (He didn’t know why.) He knew that HYDRA forces had stormed the compound, and that Brock Rumlow had acted as a sniper against Steve. (He didn’t know how.) He knew that the bullets that killed Steve had not been from Rumlow, but from Sharon Carter’s gun. (He didn’t know if that could possibly be true.) He knew Steve was dead.

‘And I’m guessing you know more.’

‘Of course.’

‘What?’

Natasha shook her head. ‘I told you, we’re meeting friends. I don’t want to explain twice.’

Her route took them out onto the main road again. They joined it heading back in the direction they’d come from, then split off to the north. Bucky was genuinely hungry by the time they pulled into a Denny’s parking lot in the middle of nowhere. He could afford not to sleep, but he needed to eat more than most people under ordinary circumstances. 

The place was quiet and the acne-scarred waiter barely glanced at them as he scurried over with menus. Bucky ordered the all-you-can-eat pancakes. Natasha went for the blueberry, which she promptly pushed aside in favour of making a call on her cell phone.

‘Hi, Pepper. Pepper? It’s me. Yes, yes, I know.’ Natasha spun her knife around her fingers and let the woman on the other end of the line do most of the talking. ‘I was driving. I know, Pepper,’ she said, between the frantic, flustered exclamations of a voice Bucky didn’t recognise but knew must belong to the esteemed Pepper Potts. _Can you believe it? Oh, God, this is terrible. I know it’s dangerous being a - a superhero, I suppose - I don’t think I’ve slept through one of Tony’s missions since New York, but, but to lose Steve like this. It’s just so terrible…_

Bucky reached towards Natasha’s neglected maple syrup jar and got his hand slapped for his pains. He called the waiter over to order a second stack of pancakes, extra maple syrup please, and missed the next bit. When he tuned back in, Natasha was saying, ‘Well, there’s your secretary, I suppose. She could… I’m sure there must be somebody competent… Yes. Of course. I don’t think… Thank you, Pepper, yes. Right, I’ll make sure - I’m sorry, I have to go.’

She peeled away from the conversation just as a familiar black man wearing stylish sunglasses joined them at the table. He slid into the seat next to Bucky with an air of nonchalance that would only have drawn attention among professionals, but should pass in Denny’s (as long as their teenage waiter wasn’t actually a HYDRA plant, but Bucky knew he had to draw the line on paranoia somewhere, even if his best friend had been shot dead by his own girlfriend within a secure facility less than twelve hours before).

‘Hey, Sam,’ said Natasha. ‘Just you?’

Sam pulled off the sunglasses. ‘That’s, “hey, handsome” to you.’

‘Hey, handsome. My, I think I’m going to swoon,’ Natasha said tonelessly. She spun the knife again and began to meticulously pour maple syrup over her plate of dubious breakfast foods.

‘Very funny, Romanoff.’ To Bucky he said, more pleasantly, ‘How you holding up?’

‘I’m… holding, I guess.’

He didn’t want to go into more detail. He didn’t want to tell the Falcon that he’d once watched a buddy in South Tyrol- or was itArdennes, yes, Ardennes - lose a leg to infected shrapnel wounds, and the man had sworn blind he could still feel his foot, a phantom limb, even as it rotted on the waste heap; and Bucky thought dead companions were the same, ghosts, not the kind you might accidentally talk to but simply in the unshakeable certainty that they were going to walk back in the door and ask why everybody looked so miserable. That wasn’t the sort of joke Steve would make but it still seemed more likely than the possibility that he was dead, not Steve who’d survived everything the Nazis and HYDRA and alien armies had to throw at him, not Steve who’d miraculously found Bucky seventy years out of time and dragged him back to - not himself - but somebody who remembered that person - not Steve goddamn Captain America Rogers. No, he didn’t want to tell Sam that he was still waiting for the reality of Steve’s death to crash down upon him, and and then he thought he would probably break, and only someone with a death wish should stand in his way when it did. He knew Sam meant it when he asked and would listen if Bucky did decide to talk, and Bucky was grateful for that, but that didn’t mean he felt eager to pour  all of his grief and pain onto somebody else.

Anyway, he had a feeling the former soldier already understood. It was there in Sam’s sympathetic nod. In the tired look in his eyes.

By contrast, he had a cold look for Natasha, who said, ‘I take it I’m still not forgiven for…’

‘For siding with Tony?’

‘That’s not what I did, Sam. I thought it was the right thing to do.’

This did make the Falcon look at her, sharply, his jaw hardening. ‘And now?’

‘In principle, yes.’ Natasha had crossed her arms on the table, and her tone took on an edge of defensiveness. ‘We need people to give us guidance, Sam. But it’s not worth a damn thing if we can’t trust the people we’re taking orders from.’

‘That’s what I mean. After everything - after _this_ \- how can you still think we’ll ever be able to?’

‘Because - what’s the alternative? Whose judgement are we gonna trust? Fury’s? Tony’s? Mine? I don’t.’

Steve’s, thought Bucky, but Steve was dead. And even he’d had a habit of jumping in without thinking everything through. Bucky didn’t want to let anybody give him orders ever again, which was, he supposed, how Steve must have felt his entire life. (Life, over. Felt. Had. Dead. Bucky had to keep reminding himself to think in the past tense, and it stung every time.) 

Sam and Natasha glared at each other in silence. Bucky had the sense of an old argument rekindled. They were at an impasse.

It was Sam who broke it with a sigh. ‘What did you want to show us, Nat?’ he asked.

Natasha laid her phone on the table. The image was dark and grainy, but Bucky could see that a woman’s head filled the screen: blonde hair and a face contorted in horror.

‘Shit,’ muttered Sam.

‘This is from the security camera in Steve’s cell, seconds after - after Sharon put four bullets in Steve’s chest,’ said Natasha.

‘What did she do next?’

Natasha’s fingers swiped across the screen, zooming out enough to show the hands of a grey-uniformed woman reaching to restrain the former SHIELD agent. ‘Nothing. The guards pulled her away.’

A family with a boisterous toddler came in and settled down two booths over. Sam rubbed at the bridge of his nose. ‘Do you have the video?’

‘Yes. It’s not easy watching.’

‘We’re big boys, Nat.’

The toddler had clambered up on the seat to peer over the booth wall at them. Wide brown eyes stared Bucky down from under a halo of frizzy hair. Natasha and the Falcon were both watching him too, he realised, and tried to find his voice. ‘I want to see it.’

‘All right.’

She pulled the zoom all the way back. Steve came into view, sprawled on the floor, then seemed to shimmer and distort as Natasha tapped the screen and transported them a couple of minutes back in time. Now the miniature Steve on the screen stood, facing away from the camera and the helpless watchers. Bucky could make out fair hair, broad shoulders and a sweat-stained shirt. Natasha pressed play, and the tiny numbers in the corner flicked forwards. 

The mini-Steve hammered at the door of the small cell. He’d have been able to hear the commotion outside as enemy forces battled with the guards in the block, the gunfire and panicked orders and screams. He’d have stood there, confused but understanding enough to know that he needed to be out there, needed to fight, that there were good men dying.

Some unheard noise must have made Steve turn towards the high window, towards the camera eye, then without warning stagger and bend double. His hands clutched at his unprotected stomach in an attempt to staunch the flow of blood from the sniper’s bullet. He tripped away from the window. He was clearly in pain, but his expression was more snarl than grimace, and he remained standing until the cell door opened.

There was Sharon. A sickening flash of hope crossed Steve’s face as he moved towards her, the way a plant would turn to face the sun, and Bucky couldn’t help but be glad that they could only see the back of Steve’s head as Sharon calmly raised her piece; that they couldn’t see the hope turn to bewilderment, to horror, to whatever betrayed thoughts were the last to cross Steve’s mind before the slow-motion crack of silent shots. Before he fell, broken, lifeless, on the concrete floor. (Get up, Stevie. Stop being silly. You have to get up now.)

Bucky must have flinched, or startled, or maybe stopped breathing, because Natasha reached across and laid a hand on the back of his forearm. (Steve, get up.)

On-screen, Sharon seemed to sag. The Glock dropped from her suddenly lifeless fingers. They were at the first image again, dawning shock and realisation - then the guards burst into the cell. Bucky still had the bruises in testament to Sharon’s combat skills and he was in no doubt she could have taken out all three of them, but she offered no resistance to the two who pulled her away while the third dropped to his knees and searched Captain America - Steve - for signs of life.

Natasha paused the video. Bucky noted, almost with surprise, that they were still in the pancake house. Somebody had given the toddler a cookie which the small child chewed solemnly while blinking at them across the booths. 

‘What the hell is that?’ he managed to ask.

Natasha didn’t bother to ask him what he meant. ‘Mind control,’ she said, and the world spun for a moment. ‘Not like what happened to you, not quite, but it’s something we’ve seen before.’

‘Barton?’

‘He told you? Yes. When Loki came, Clint and several others were placed under some kind of a spell, a compulsion, that looked a lot like this. We’ve heard of other similar incidents.’ She breathed out slowly. ‘I don’t believe Sharon is responsible for her actions.’

‘Let me guess. The big shots don’t agree,’ said the Falcon.

‘No. They want to try her for treason. If you can call it a trial.’

‘Guess that stings a bit more when it’s _your_ friend, huh?’

Bucky shook his head. ‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘That’s not fair.’ There were plenty of things about Natasha’s recent actions he disagreed with, particularly the ease with which she’d turned her back on Steve (Steve who inspired loyalty simply by walking into a room), but her distrust of Bucky was one thing that struck him as perfectly reasonable. _He_ barely trusted himself, so why should this woman who barely knew him, on the strength of nothing more than Steve’s rose-tinted good word? Even so, she’d given him a chance to explain himself, and she was right that Sharon Carter deserved the same. Sharon had earned a lot more faith than Bucky.

‘It doesn’t need to be fair.’

‘What, do you think I’m wrong?’ challenged Natasha.

Sam looked back down at the screen. ‘No,’ he admitted. ‘I don’t think you’re wrong.’

‘And you know what it means if I’m right.’

The Falcon paused, wrestling with the word for a few moments before admitting, ‘Yes.’

It meant there was somebody with mind control abilities on the loose. It meant that person had, most likely, infiltrated either the CIA or SHIELD and taken pains to compromise a critical, trusted agent. It meant there was a good chance they hadn’t stopped there.

It occurred to Bucky why she’d brought them both here a half-second before Natasha said it. ‘Sam and I have both worked with Wanda Maximoff for almost a year. She’s been in our heads too many times to have missed somebody messing with them. In your case, more recently.’ This last to Bucky. Then she gestured helplessly. (Bucky had almost forgotten her hand on his forearm until it was removed, to leave a patch of skin suddenly cold.) ‘But nobody’s willing to let her anywhere near Sharon.’

‘Sabotage?’ asked Sam.

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘You’re thinking it.’

‘There’s enough anti-enhanced prejudice around. They wouldn’t take much of a push. They wouldn’t let _me_ in to talk to her. I had to steal this.’ Natasha nodded to the phone.

There was some discussion of Wanda Maximoff, the young woman with the red jacket and the red eyes who’d peered inside Bucky’s skull, who’d fought beside Bucky and Steve and the others, and who now - Sam said - had taken Steve’s death hard in the wild, panicked way of one who was still learning the truths of war. (Wanda had lost people, Bucky knew, but she hadn’t watched her friends and comrades fall in battle a dozen a hundred a thousand times over. She was still young, for war. Sam and Natasha were old in their young faces and battle-weary and strong enough to pull themselves together and _get on with it_ , Agent Carter’s clipped vowels ringing through time, which Bucky told himself he could be too. Steve deserved that. Might not have wanted it, but deserved it.) He didn’t have much to add to that conversation, or the new-world chatter of unfamiliar places, names and politics that followed, so he ordered another plate of sawdust-tasting pancakes and watched and listened. The young family finished their breakfast and the toddler was bundled up and carried out, replete with chocolate and nestled on a father’s shoulder. An older couple sat sipping coffee at the bar. Truckers scattered or clustered like feral cats in ruins. Rome. Athens. London, long ago, Blitz and rain, skinny strays hunting for rats through the rubble. Bucky Barnes had never been to Athens so why did he see tabby patches sprawled in dusty sunlight amidst ancient stones? (And who had died there?)

He started first when Natasha’s phone chirped. She scooped it up.

‘Oh, you have got to be - hello? Hello, Sir.’

Bucky leaned in to listen, and Natasha half-glared at him.

‘Don’t you think the Falcon - no, I understand. I’ll be there soon.’ She hung up and began to gather her belongings. ‘The committee’s calling together a task force to hunt down Brock Rumlow. I’ve been commandeered.’

‘I should -‘ said Sam.

‘You’re not invited. Just… See what you can get on with, and don’t blow anything up. OK? I’d want to be there for that.’ She stood up, pulling her jacket on as she went.

Sam slumped forward on the table. ‘Yeah, yeah.’

‘And say hi to Maria for me,’ Natasha added over her shoulder.

Bucky called after her, too late, ‘… Maria?’

 

***

 

Bucky shouldn’t have been surprised, he thought, by what happened two hours later. 

They were in the middle of a tedious discussion with one of the Avengers’ many lawyers about the use of mind-reading in court cases (and Bucky was just starting to think that if he heard the word “precedent” one more time he might overturn the table) when Sam’s phone rang. Sam answered it, paused, and held it out to Bucky. ‘It’s for you.’

He took it. ‘Hello?’

The voice that greeted Bucky was female, unfamiliar, and brisk. ‘Mr Barnes?’

‘Speaking.’

‘Finally. I’ve been trying to get hold of you all morning. You’re harder to track down than a chicken in a forest.’

‘Um. Who is this?’ tried Bucky, with a sinking feeling he already knew, though he’d never met -

‘My name’s Maria Hill. I’m calling to let you know that Pepper Potts has been named executor for Steve Rogers’ will. There are some things I need to discuss with you. Are you available to meet?’

Bucky thought quickly. _He_ didn’t know why Natasha had set this in motion. ‘Not right now,’ he said. ‘How about - uh, six? At Steve’s apartment?’ he added. He could hardly ask her to drive all the way out to the Avengers facility, and he didn’t want to visit Stark Tower, and neither of those were exactly secure locations if their conversation was likely to be anything like earlier’s. 

‘OK.’

‘And Natasha says hi,’ Bucky added.

Half a second’s hesitation. ‘Say hi back for me,’ said Maria Hill, and something in her tone made Bucky think that he’d regret it if he didn’t. He hung up and returned the phone to Sam.

Goddamn _spies._

Sometimes Bucky really, really missed the army.

 

***

 

Natasha was waiting outside the sandstone building when Sam’s car pulled up, because New York traffic won out over even the most drawn-out and poorly-planned task force meetings.

‘Maria says hi,’ said Bucky, once Sam had attempted to drive off. (He was about two car-lengths away.)

Natasha raised an eyebrow. ‘Good. Where are we meeting her?’

‘Steve’s place.’ 

He knew immediately that was the wrong thing to say. Natasha’s brows furrowed slightly.

‘Steve’s place is bugged, James.’

‘Never mind.’

She began to explain in low tones as they headed down the sidewalk. The street was busy but none of the passers-by paid them much attention: a Manhattan crowd was a good place to hold a private conversation. Natasha waved cheerfully when they passed Sam’s car, and Sam responded with a gesture that would have made Bucky’s mam threaten to glue his fingers together.

On the N train Bucky told Natasha about the day’s endless, unproductive planning sessions. In a situation with so little legal ground to argue either way, everything came down to clout, and they’d been stonewalled at every turn: it was pretty clear somebody suspected a leak, and the determination to brand Sharon as HYDRA was starting to feel more and more like something other than obtuseness.The lawyer who’d made it in to speak with her had helplessly reported back that Sharon refused to say a word.

They reached Steve’s apartment minutes before six. Natasha was checking through the kitchen cupboards with a beeping electronic device when Maria arrived, and Bucky let her in.

‘So what’s all this actually about? Is Nat here?’

‘Yes, she’s in the kitchen - do you want a drink?’ Bucky made frantic sweeping gestures with his hands while he spoke.

If Natasha’s expression had been exasperated, Maria’s was withering. Lips pursed, she grabbed a notepad from a side table and sketched something that looked like - a hairbrush? It was followed by a question mark. Bucky shrugged.

‘Coffee? Tea? I think there’s some herbal tea, and fruit juice.Or I could dig out some cocoa, if you’d prefer.’

‘Coffee. Two sugars. Black.’ Almost as an afterthought: ‘Please.’

‘How about something to eat? Tell you what, actually, I’ll grab some hummus and dips, see if I can rustle up any other snacks.’ Steve was _such_ a hipster. (Had been.) ‘I don’t know if it’s still all right - how quickly does hummus go off?’

‘I don’t know. Thank you for offering, but it’s fine.’

‘It’s nothing.’ It occurred to Bucky that Maria might think there was something - presumptive, maybe - about his actions. In another life, he’d learned to think of a dead man’s things as a free-for-all; but that was a soldier thing, and not so common among modern warfare’s drones and nukes and helicarriers. For Bucky, it was enough to be confident that Steve wouldn’t want to let anything go to waste.

He must have drifted off. The next thing he heard was, ‘I know this is hard for you.’

‘Um. Thank you.’

‘I’m here because Steve Rogers named you as one of the major beneficiaries in his will.’ Maria shrugged. ‘He said - actually, there was a lot about “all possible effort should be made to locate James Barnes” and “once he is of sound mind” that we don’t need to worry about too much. The bit that’s of relevance to us -’

‘End scene,’ said Natasha, from the kitchen doorway. She’d taken her shoes off and she carried a pack of that craft beer Steve had bought from the Sunday market.

Bucky was curious now, though. ‘Give me the gist?’ he asked Maria, who’d stopped mid-sentence.

‘He left you everything but a few bequeststowards various veterans’ and post-disaster charities.’

Natasha picked up the notepad and squinted at Maria’s drawing. ‘What is this, tumbleweed? You’re a terrible artist.’

‘How many bugs did you find?’

‘Five. They should be out of action now.’

‘Tony planted two of those.’

Natasha smiled sweetly. ‘Tony, you listening?’

A heavy bass line suddenly emanated from her pocket, followed by the words, ‘ _Fate comes a-knockin’, doors start lockin’, your old time connection, change your -_ ’

Bucky flinched, then forced himself to relax. Maria appeared unimpressed. Natasha was still smiling as she answered the phone. ‘Hi, Tony. You’re not going to tell on us, are you?’

Either she or Stark must have flipped her cell to speakerphone. ‘I hope you know what you’re doing, _Natalie_.’

Bucky blinked.

‘Save it. I’ve already had the lecture. Now, what can you tell us about the ones you _didn’t_ plant?’

There was a pause, then a reluctant-sounding, ‘I shouldn’t.’

‘Well, if you’d rather let the committee send you on wild goose chases after Rumlow than figure out who was really behind your friend’s death…’

Another pause, longer, stretching out until it was taut and ready to snap. Stark’s sigh crackled from the speaker. ‘I’ll look into it. No promises.’

‘That’s all I ask.’ Natasha ended the call.

‘Nat,’ said Maria, in something more careful than her usual briskness, ‘What do you mean by, “really behind your friend’s death”?’

Natasha handed her a beer. ‘You’re going to need this.’

Two minutes later, Maria handed it back unopened. ‘I’m going to need something stronger.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like hydrochloric acid.’

It was her smile, Bucky thought. Never mind the martial arts abilities, the weapons expertise, the tech skills; never mind the determination, the deception, the brains and the disarming beauty. It was the smile, warning of all these things and worse, that was the most terrifying thing about the Black Widow.

She said, ‘Good.’

 

***

 

The tunnel was cold in the dank, chill way of forgotten spaces. It dripped. It was easy to imagine rats, though they hadn’t seen signs of any. Maria Hill stood twenty feet away, working carefully on a section of flaking brick wall. It was a one-person job and Hill seemed to have taken a personal delight in the prospect of undermining the building’s defences. In this case, almost literally.

‘I’ve been meaning to ask,’ said Natasha. She leaned easily against the wall, one foot raised, like she was waiting on any street corner.

‘Yes?’

‘What do you remember?’

Steve had asked, _Do you remember me?_ like it was the only thing that mattered. Nobody else had gone into the subject, once it was established that he more or less recalled who he was meant to be; they’d been more concerned with the things hiding in his mind that he couldn’t control. Maybe they thought it was private. Maybe they simply didn’t know how to bring it up. _Hey, you have amnesia? Tell me about it!_

But sometimes people overcomplicated things.

What did he remember?

‘The names of every boy I ever threatened to beat up for my sisters,’ he said. ‘The faces of every one I did beat up for Steve. His mam worked the TB ward, died when he was twenty-one **.** That was the only funeral I ever went to - how dumb’s that? All the folk who died in the war, and the only funeral I ever went to was for a TB nurse in Brooklyn.’

‘Not true. At least two assassinations at funerals were the work of the Winter Soldier.’

‘Well, I don’t remember that.’

Natasha shifted to the other foot. She was looking past him. ‘So you’re Bucky Barnes.’

‘No. Not exactly.’ He shook his head. How to explain? ‘Everything from before the train, from before I died, I think it’s pretty much there. It’s not perfect, but it’s - nobody remembers everything, do they? And I don’t know how much is normal to forget. But it’s mostly there. The rest is…’

The day he’d fought Steve on the Insight carrier was as clear as clean glass. It felt like he’d picked up from there, starting with a head full of skills he couldn’t recall learning and half-formed images. The life of Bucky Barnes had trotted back into his head easily enough over the following months, and if the memories didn’t quite settle into place or feel like they entirely belonged to him then they were at least as vivid as watching any bright film reel in a quiet theatre. The time between, though, that was something else. Some events were distinct as anything but stranded without context; others, more complete, were foggy all the way through. He remembered killing enough people to lose count even without somebody screwing around with his brain, but not who most of them were or why or if he’d ever known in the first place. Years seemed to vanish without mention: forgotten or slept through?

‘It’s a blur. More of it’s still coming back.’

‘Do you remember ever working as a trainer for a place called the Red Room?’

No. He would have said he hadn’t ever been allowed out of stasis long enough for something like that, but - ‘The name sounds familiar,’ Bucky ventured. Red Room. Soviet? It was possible enough that his handlers had discussed it over his head, that he’d picked it up in some conversation or mission briefing. He couldn’t - no. And what did it mean to her?

‘What about Natalia? Does that name sound familiar?’

This time she met his eyes. Bucky found himself trying to shake off a sense of familiarity. Of course he recognised her: he’d shot her, twice, and if he hadn’t come close enough face-to-face either time to know without looking that her eyes were green, then what of it?

Natalie. Natalia. The name rang like a bell (Christmas, Natale, _Tu scende dalle stelle_ in a land with no soldiers’ truce), but tying it down was like hunting for a shape in mist or trying to catch snow. He had the strangest sense that he’d known a Natalia once. That she’d been important.

He’d waited too long to answer. Natasha said, more softly, ‘Do you know why I’m asking?’

‘I - I think so. But I don’t remember any more than that. I’m sorry.’

‘That’s all right. Neither do I.’ She fiddled with her gauntlet for a moment. ‘I looked for you. After Odessa. I think I would have anyway, no matter who you were. I don’t like being shot.’

‘Most people don’t.’

‘Well, sometimes I think Steve -‘ she said, and caught herself.

‘He certainly always seemed to like getting beat up,’ said Bucky. ‘You know, he actually didn’t throw that bad a punch, for a little guy. The trouble was he was _such_ a little guy. Like being punched by a toddler.’

‘That can be surprisingly painful,’ said Natasha.

Bucky tilted his head at her.

‘… I may have an alter ego as “Auntie Nat”. And no, I’m not telling you whose kids.’

‘Auntie Nat.’

‘Don’t start.’

‘That’s wonderful.’

‘Tony was bad enough.’

‘Do you bake cookies and teach them to kill people with stationery?’

‘Oh, shut up.’ She didn’t sound pissed, or even like she was really trying to sound pissed, so much as making a token acknowledgement of the fact that she _should_ be trying to sound pissed. And she was smiling.

Bucky was still laughing about it when Maria Hill signalled to them.

‘Thirty seconds,’ she said. The acid had already eaten most of the way through the feeble mortar. Twenty-eight seconds later, they were able to step over the rubble into the building’s basement. It was the work of moments to clear the floor: with everybody gone home for the night, who needed to patrol underground?

There were no cameras in this pipe-filled room, but they found one to dodge in the corridor it opened onto. It was the work of moments for Natasha to cut into its cables and short the circuit. That wasn’t entirely subtle: somebody would soon come running to investigate the dead cameras.

By then they were on the second floor, and they’d only needed to ice two guards to get there.

Not all members of staff, it transpired, had left the building. Handfuls worked late into the night, as-yet undisturbed by an incident the security team still hoped to be a false alarm, and easy enough to evade. Only the young agent in the interrogation room itself and the two watching through the one-way glass needed to be taken out.

Carter certainly deserved points for poise. Most people would have reacted more if somebody had swept into the room and shot the person who was trying to make them talk.

‘Not a rescue?’ she said hopefully.

‘I’m afraid not,’ said Natasha. Bucky watched through the glass as she lifted the slumped agent from his seat, deposited him in a corner and took the chair. ‘That would cause more problems than it solves. I need to talk to you.’

‘Just you and me?’

Natasha snorted. ‘And friends. Wave, guys.’

Maria Hill flipped the lights to allow Sharon Carter to see through the two-way mirror. Bucky waved.

‘Sharon,’ said Natasha. ‘We know you’re not HYDRA. We know this wasn’t your fault.’

Carter laughed bitterly. ‘Wasn’t my fault? I let some HYDRA agent play me like a puppet, and it wasn’t my fault?’

‘It’s happened to the best of us.’

‘Yes,’ said Carter, leaning forwards, ‘But there wasn’t an Asgardian staff or a chair or a superhuman mind-reader. There was just little Sharon Carter too _weak_ to defend herself from an idiot with a grudge.’

Natasha swung back on her chair in a perfect image of composure. ‘Is that why you’re not talking?’

‘Don’t be daft. You know why I’m not talking.’

‘But you trust me.’

Sharon said nothing. She looked from Natasha to Bucky, to Maria, and then to the camera in the corner. Her eyes flickered at Natasha’s faint nod. She pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose.

Natasha spoke gently. ‘We’ve got this, Sharon. Who’s the idiot?’

‘Alec Friedman,’ said Sharon through her hand. ‘He used to work as a psychologist for SHIELD. You’re looking for Alec Friedman.’

 

***

 

Alec Friedman was not a difficult man to track down. Two days later, at three in the afternoon, Bucky and Natasha strolled outside his apartment as Hampshire tourists. It was a paper-thin disguise, but several genuine tourists contrived to draw enough attention to themselves to make the fake ones blend into the background. By half past three they were inside.

Alec Friedman returned home to a pair of very unhappy former Russian assassins at approximately quarter to six.

There was one slight worry, which was that Sharon hadn’t been able to tell them exactly how the man’s abilities worked. She didn’t think it was necessarily in his voice so much as the shimmering gold ring he wore; but it was an easy enough matter to both remove the ring and gag the man before they hustled him down to the car. Their unfortunate passenger found himself bundled into the back seat (‘And you’re lucky it’s not the boot,’ said Bucky) as witness to an argument over the radio channel followed by an hour of eighties pop ballads. (Natasha won. She could really sing, though, so Bucky wasn’t too inclined to complain.)

Sam met them at the front door of the Avengers facility. Maria Hill was inside, wearing a similar expression to Liho with his paw in the butter dish. They trekked Mr Alec Friedman through the building and into a small interview room. It was a much comfier space than Sharon had been confined in. There were plushy seats. The two-way window was a standard feature.

An intern produced a gaggle of men in suits, who followed mother duck Maria Hill into the observation room. Sam vanished for a minute, and returned with a young, long-haired woman by his side. Her eyes weren’t red at the moment but they were red-rimmed from crying. Natasha gave her a hug.

‘For Sharon,’ she said quietly.

Wanda nodded, seemed to gather herself, and headed into the interview room. A long hour later she emerged. The others came out soon afterwards. Maria Hill looked equal parts taken aback and determined, while the others’s moods seemed to range from nonplussed to furious.

‘His real name is Albert Fennhoff,’ she told them. Bucky had no idea what that meant and Sam looked as baffled as he felt, but Natasha’s eyes narrowed.

‘You’re putting him away?’

‘Somewhere a key wouldn’t help.’

‘And Sharon?’

‘That’s trickier.’

A lot of things were trickier, it turned out. Various meetings and interviews dragged on until close to midnight. They drove back to New York in silence, in the shining dark, with no more than hope and easy promises that the people named by Fennhoff would be removed, or that Sharon Carter would receive a fair trial, or - faintest of all - that she would be acquitted.

‘How about Maria’s?’ Sam had said, and Natasha had said, ‘I’ll think about it.’

But they had achieved - _something_ , Bucky felt, and he no longer wanted to punch the wall. (Stark’s face arguably still deserved it.) Nobody would remember Sharon Carter as HYDRA. That was something. That was something Steve would be proud of.

 

***

 

They parked the car at Stark Tower, because Natasha was too clearly exhausted to drive any further and had no intention of letting Bucky try.

Between witching hour and morning even the New York subway grew quiet. It was fortunate that there were only a half-dozen passengers in their carriage, since it meant seats to collapse into. It would have been easy to be lulled into sleep by the train’s motion. Bucky wondered, watching her dig her nails into her palms to keep herself awake, when she’d last slept. If she’d been sleeping. All the same, she stubbornly stayed upright as far as their stop. She swayed on the landing for a moment before she managed to unlock the door.

Bucky might have been happy to eat a dead man’s food, but sleeping in a dead man’s empty apartment was a step too far. Or perhaps that was for his own sake rather than out of any sense of respect. Steve’s place was already starting to feel more like a mausoleum than somewhere lived-in. He knew there was a comfortable room and a bed open for him at the Avengers facility, or at any hotel in the city with the (substantial amount of) money Steve had left him, or potentially even at Stark Tower. And then there was Natasha’s sofa.

He’d gone for the sofa.

Natasha’s cat had apparently decided to use Bucky’s bags as a bed and made no motion to move when he approached. Bucky lifted the cat away and placed him on the floor, then lifted him away again when he immediately jumped back up. And again. And once more for luck. After the fourth time Liho sauntered off as if he hadn’t really wanted to lie there anyway.

When Bucky turned around, Natasha was still there. Her gaze was fixed on Liho.

‘Natasha. Go to bed.’

She seemed to shake herself. ‘I’m going, I’m going. Night night.’

‘Yeah, goodnight,’ said Bucky, with a mental image of the sun coming up over the East River in a couple of hours.

He dropped off easily, but his sleep was subject to a rude awakening. Bucky opened his eyes to find a set of whiskers and wide green eyes hovering a couple of inches from his face. Liho yowled and kneaded his paws into Bucky’s chest again.

‘Wharrisit?’

Then he heard the muffled shout and tumbled off the sofa, reaching instinctively for a knife. There was no knife, and he was wearing pyjamas, and it was broad daylight. Intruders would surely have terrified Liho; instead the cat seemed agitated and anxious. Bucky quickly put the pieces together and swore under his breath.

He pushed Liho away. ‘OK, puss. Let’s go see.’

Bucky pushed the door to Natasha’s room open and promptly tripped over a shoebox. He recovered without falling, nudged the box into a safer position, and carefully approached. Liho hopped up onto the bed and nosed in towards his owner, then backed away; Bucky didn’t blame him, because he knew a nightmare when he saw one and he knew better than to wake the dreamer in the middle. Natasha more than most. With other people, it was a question of not increasing their distress by interrupting the dream; with Natasha, Bucky suspected it was a question of not giving her reason to pull out the gun she probably kept under her pillow. Unless it was in the nightstand. The absence of knives mounted on the wall, he thought, showed impressive restraint.

Natasha’s mutterings slowly subsided. Her taut, stricken expression relaxed into one of easier sleep, and Liho crawled in and curled up against her stomach. Bucky, crouching by the bed, reached over to gently tap her wrist.

Her eyes fluttered open, and there was something soft in them for a second before her nose crinkled in confusion. ‘James?’

‘Your cat was worried,’ said Bucky. ‘It was a nightmare, wasn’t it?’

Natasha sat up. Her hand reached absently to stroke the black tom. Liho butted his head into her fingers and purred.

‘It was - when Loki came, when Clint tried to kill me. In the nightmare I lose.’

‘He was mind-controlled.’ Bucky personally thought that mystic alien technology, as opposed to old-fashioned brainwashing, held enough power to absolve a person for the actions they’d carried out under its influence. He’d known better than to mention this to Barton.

‘Mm-hm. Though that’s not the only time he tried.’ Natasha scratched behind Liho’s ears. ‘When we first met, when he recruited me. He’d been sent to kill me. Now he’s my best friend. Oh, and he fights aliens and robot armies using a bow and arrow, alongside a woman who can bend matter and lots of flying people and now we’ve got the fantastic shrinking man and the prince of Wakanda. Meanwhile _we’re_ both friends with Captain America, when we used to be Russian assassins.’

‘I heard stories about the Black Widow. I never suspected… I should have known. You were always the best.’

‘You remember that?’

‘And modest as ever, I see.’

Natasha knew a deflection when she heard one, and that had hardly been subtle, but she must have decided to run with it. She sighed. ‘Do you ever want a normal life?’

‘I wish the boy I was could have gotten one,’ said Bucky. ‘I don’t think I’d be very good at it these days. Anyhow, in my day, dying in war was normal.’

‘Did you just say, “in my day”?’

‘Huh?’

‘And you need a hearing aid. Wow, you _are_ old, James Barnes.’

‘Brat.’

Natasha smirked and tossed her head back. ‘I’m only a young whippersnapper compared to you.’ Then, more seriously: ‘Thank you, James.’

 

***

 

An ATS girl had once taught Bucky to make pancakes English-style. Bucky preferred American-style (or, as he thought of them, “proper”) pancakes, but Natasha had no baking powder and he was relieved enough to learn she had the requisite flour and eggs, so English-style it was.

Liho picked Bucky’s lap to sit on and purr, and if Natasha felt rejected it didn’t show. She said, ‘Rumlow next?’

‘Rumlow next.’

**Author's Note:**

> If you've made it this far, congratulations! Because I think I lost the plot about 4,000 words ago. (I mean I *literally* lost the plot: the fic did not want to be written and all my lovely character arcs got smushed and this rambling is going to seem much more embarrassing when it's not 3am.)
> 
> If you hate it and want to tell me why, you know where the comment button is. (Or if you liked it. That's nice too.)


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